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Seeing that the increased quality of the show has brought falling ratings, Marvel hopes to reverse the process by making the show crappier.

Last night's episode of Marvel: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. was perhaps the best yet, but, unfortunately for Marvel, the ratings fell again for the show, hitting a record low in both total viewers (6.63 million) and the popular men 18-49 demographic, in which it scored a 2.2 (down 12% from last week). Desperately seeking a way to save the show, Marvel analysts have discovered a direct correlation between the quality of the episodes and the ratings: as the show gets better, less people watch it. The solution to this problem is simple: make a shittier show.

"The people have spoken," declared executive producer Joss Whedon. "They don't want an enjoyable show with engaging storylines and characters they care about. They want a disappointment. Well, message received. I should have trusted the system."

Whedon went on to promise that future episodes of the show will feature less character development for Agents Fitz and Simmons, and more emotionless acting from Agent Ward. "There will be absolutely no believable sexual tension between any characters on the show," he swore.

According to sources at Marvel, teams of writers are working around the clock to scrub the rest of the season of any ongoing mysteries, such as what happened to Agent Coulson after the Battle for New York and why all of Skye's shirts are missing the top three buttons, and replace them with generic monster of the week plots, though none of those monsters will be recognizable characters from the Marvel Universe.

"To viewers who have commented on how much better the last two episodes have been," Whedon concluded in a heartfelt statement, "I apologize. From the bottom of my heart. We'll do much worse from now on. I promise."

The next episode of Marvel: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. airs on Tuesday at 8E/7C on ABC.

I haven't been watching AoS. Basically for me and probably lots of people, I'll give you one maybe two episodes to draw me in. The first two episodes did little for me. The fact that they are seemingly allergic to comic heroes keeps me from returning.

I ripped the show when it first started but my opinion has turned around. It's showing promise and I can see it leading into Cap sequel with S.H.I.E.L.D. becoming more menacing (as Skye believes them to be). They've been picked up for the entire season and I'll be watching, hoping they keep with the current trend.

I'm not seeing this major improvement everyone else seems to. It's still the same show--above average in quality--it was in the beginning. I'll continue to look forward to it only because I'm a comics fan.

Being a fan of Whedon's early work I actually gave Agents a full six episodes to get their sh*t straight. Unfortunately, the show still feels like NCIS: Ambercrombe. Its as if the show is doing a homage to the X-files except with all models pulled out of a JCPenny fall catalog. Why Whedon thought that a show called "Agents" of SHIELD needed three non-Agents is beyond me. The final straw for me was looking through the shows I watch on a weekly basis and realizing that Agents is the worst thing on my list.

Don't worry, I read somewhere on the internet a perfectly reasonable rationalization why Disney is happy with ratings in freefall, and all is well. This is exactly what they wanted to happen. And the Thor movie can't possibly fail to boost the AoS show...OOPS.

Don't worry, I read somewhere on the internet a perfectly reasonable rationalization why Disney is happy with ratings in freefall, and all is well. This is exactly what they wanted to happen. And the Thor movie can't possibly fail to boost the AoS show...OOPS.

Hey! How am I taking it personally? Those were direct quotes from Whedon!

The Motley Fool is usually a fun read, but you have to work pretty hard at spinning to try and make a 52% drop in ratings since the pilot sound like cause for anything but attempting to correct the course of the show before the decision to renew or not comes. And the show has lost a big percentage of that coveted demographic they cite in the article since it was written. The network tried to show their confidence by immediately giving the order for a full season, but rumors now are that they are hoping to be able to squeeze in a season two in service to The Avengers 2 movie and then kaput if things don't turn around.

That second season is now spoken of as not certain, however. (i think they have to go for a season two in tandem with the movie, but the show clearly can't stand on its own if ratings don't do a 180.) Remember the show No Ordinary Family? It was cancelled after one season but had better ratings by its 7th episode than Agents Of SHIELD does.